Relay: Fashion Disaster

Since I’m not really in the fashion game, I’m just going to put this out there. This fall’s fashion, designed mostly by men, is horrible. I believe there is a conspiracy theory to take us back to the days of women’s suffrage and the deposition of the petticoats from 1776.
The top fashion magazines are all featuring layouts from the top clothing designers that they seem to revere. Why else would they suggest we wear such ridiculous outfits? One advertisement that features a group of women sitting on a train is downright scary. They all wear blank expressions, except for the one with big, googly sunglasses, and tall, really tall, floppy fur hats that look as if many animals were injured in the making.
They look like a crew of clones traveling to have their organs removed for their originals. If I were to happen upon that train in my jeans and floppy cardigan I would not walk, I would run, scared for my kidneys.
Another ad features women who look as if they have spent the last 10 years underground, dead and buried. They are pale, with big dark circles under their heroin-laced eyes, and blood-red lips. They are propped against each other to prevent slump, wearing fancy clothes and really big handbags, presumably to cover their embalmed bodies. Oh yeah, that’s exactly what we women want to look like.
And what’s with the big boxy coats this year? They make even the starving supermodels look fat, so can you imagine what they would do for us real gals? Yes, Mr. Designer, we look fat in those coats, all of us!
Shoes are no better. One ad suggests that we all need to buy bigger and better shoes for winter, black oxfords with pilgrim buckles that make the slimmest of legs look chunky. The shoes are similar to the ones the nuns wore in parochial school when they still believed they could torture us. The heels are a bit higher than the nuns used to wear, which is a good thing, or I might have been scarred with a heel print on my forehead, or on my arse, as my Scottish grandmother used to say.
Let’s face it, the fashion editors are scared of losing the revenue the fashion designers bring to the magazine, so they proclaim how wonderful and functional the fall fashions are. It’s just hard to believe they would betray their readers and allow us to even consider wearing these outfits outdoors, in public!
The only designers I would even consider buying are Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren (but not the horsey stuff, which, really, Ralph, is not realistic; not all of us, not even most of us, are horse people, hanging out at the best of stables on a Sunday afternoon), and Donna Karan. The three of them live out here and are obviously inspired by their environment — and us real people.
It’s baffling to me that most of the top-name designers are men. And why do they want us dead and buried, wearing really silly clothes? Do they miss their grandmas and are trying to recreate their look? Are they purposely trying to humiliate us? I miss my grandmothers too but that doesn’t mean I will ever dress like them. All I need to remind me of Nana Haulty and Nana Foster is a butterscotch candy melting in my mouth.
Let’s not allow this, ladies. We’ve come a long way, baby, and I don’t think any of us wants us to go back to silly hats, heavy wool coats, and below-the-knee skirts, without even a side slit.